Timeless Moon (15 page)

"Please,
ma'am. I'm begging you!"

Josette
sighed. He was an idiot. He'd known the woman was married
—apparently even knew the husband. It was certainly none of her business. But he smelled all right, and she
didn't
want to see him get killed.

"Go hide next to my car. It's the black Firebird. I'll be there in a minute with some clothes and a phone."

“T
hank you, ma'am. God bless you."

Josette
sighed again. She'd been that young once and easily as stupid. It wouldn't hurt anything for her to give the Lothario one of the inexpensive T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants she'd bought, and by now the cell phone would be fully charged and ready for use.

The argument next door was rising in volume. The woman appeared to be giving as good as she was getting. The drama and noise would probably have already drawn the police if the movie hadn't been running so loud right next door. As it was, murder and mayhem could probably be taking place with no one the wiser. Certainly nobody noticed when she slipped out of her room on her errand of mercy.

"You just saved my life. I can't thank you enough, ma'am. I really can't. If there is ever anything I can do for you
—" He repeated the words over and over as he started to dress.

"I doubt that there will be. I'm only in town for a few days." The scent of his gratitude and relief was nearly overwhelming. She leaned against the fender of the car, keeping him in her peripheral vision while at the same time giving him a semblance of privacy.

"Just the same. You can count on me if you need anything, anything at all." He pulled the drawstring tight around his waist and knotted it. He grabbed the T-shirt from where she'd set it on the hood of the car, pulling it on over his head. It was a little small for him: tight across his chest and back, but at least he was now decently covered.

"My name's John Simmons. I've got a farm just a few miles to the west of town. You need anything, you give me a call. The number's in the book."

He sounded desperate to save face, not that she blamed him. So she said the words he needed to hear. "If I need anything I'll call."

"Good. You do that." Now that he was dressed he seemed more confident, less nervous. But he still
kept casting glances over his shoulder at the next unit. It spoke well of him that he was worried about Dawn, but he needn't have been.
Josette
could hear that the argument was over and had, in fact, transitioned into a particularly energetic bout of sex.

"I wouldn't worry about her."
Josette
reassured him. "I'm pretty sure you'd be able to hear if there was anything wrong. The walls really aren't that thick."

"I s'pose." He didn't sound certain.

"Trust me." She passed him the cell phone and waited as he dialed a number from memory. She was only half-listening to him arguing with a man on the other end of the line. Her mind was elsewhere. It had almost been too easy keeping track of real-time, where her body actually was. Something had been different about today. She took her time, reviewing each of the visions that had passed through her mind. The man was nearly done with his call when it finally hit her.

She was seeing the present just fine, and the past; but as for the future, she wasn't in it.

Rick sat on
the chair in his room, one boot in his lap ready to slide his foot inside, tapping the cell phone Raven had given him before he left to come here. It would be a simple matter to call him and ask him to send someone down to handle this. But he understood Josie's reluctance. She identified with Ellen, despite the girl being a raptor rather than a cat. The girl was still young to be developing seer talents. Most didn't develop them until
after
their first change. That she was seeing visions before
—she might well end up with multiple gifts, like Josie.

In the current atmosphere, with the system crashed and everybody suspect as being a traitor, could any Wolven agent come down here and react to this threat without going to extremes?

But, Rick had met Ray briefly when he'd first arrived here. The man had been working on his truck in the parking lot as he rode the bike in. The way he'd snarled at Ellen said that he wouldn't be very supportive of the girl's gifts getting
worse.

"Not yet," Rick said the words out loud and tucked the phone into the holster on his belt, laced
h
is boots, and then made his way down to Josette's door. He felt
slightly more refreshed after a brief shower and the mouthwash that had taken the scent of
doberman
from his nose and tongue. There was just something about
dobermans;
the scent just stuck with him.

It only took one knock for her to answer. The room smelled of another man, one in a panic and strongly laced with recent sex. His head moved around, trying to find the source, and she noticed.

Her snort was close to a laugh but more frustrated. "Some idiot was messing around with another man's wife next door. He had to go out the bathroom window naked and asked if he could please use my cell phone to call someone to pick him up."

Rick shot her an amused look. "And you
let him?"

She shrugged. "Why not? He wasn't exactly a threat to me and
—" The indifference on her face turned to a smirk and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Where would you be today if
you
hadn't snuck out my back window at Maman's house?"

Her eyes were twinkling merrily, and he realized he missed that look on her face. He remembered the incident well and couldn't help but grin. It wasn't that premarital sex didn't happen in Colonial America, but one had to be
…
discreet. He still remembered
Josette,
bearing a lovely French accent and an even lovelier set of curves, arriving at his master's offices that cold winter morning. (There was no embarrassment in calling your employer your master in those times, and Charles had always treated him
well
—even after he'd actively, and shamelessly, wooed the young woman.) Perhaps Charles had seen that an innocent flirtation would lead to something much deeper and that
Josette
would be made honorable again a few years later when the two married.

"That was a rather
…
exciting
night, if I remember. We wouldn't have cut it nearly so close if not for that damned corset. Those laces were murder."

She shook her head and chuckled, then walked over and sat down on the bed near him. "I hated those things. So did
Yvette. But Maman
insisted they were
all the fashion
and had our dresses sewn so they were required. I couldn't even get into my petticoats without the contraption on." She paused for a moment and then looked a little uncomfortable. "So, what should we do from here?"

He'd been thinking about just that the whole time he'd been getting dressed. "I think we need to stay in a different town tonight."

"That seems like a good idea. I'll get packed." She started to stand, but he touched her shoulder and shook his head.

"I don't mean we should
leave.
We just need to be elsewhere for tonight. We still need to get more information, but on our terms. They'll change their plans if they know you've checked out, or even if you got in the car and ran. No, we need them off balance
—not sure what to do, but not yet panicked."

That seemed to make sense to her and she nodded, smelling of ozone relief and understanding. "Then you should probably leave openly, and I'll sneak out and meet you somewhere. Right now, only a few people can probably connect us. I don't think Ellen will say anything. She would have already if she was going to."

"Right. Then your car will still be here. By the way, I like the car. It's very
you.''
Josette
smiled broadly and glanced toward the window. "But they won't know where you are or when you'll be back."

A
half hour
later,
Josette
was waiting behind a large tree, listening as the rumble of Rick's motorcycle neared. She'd packed a few toiletries, most of her paperwork
—leaving only the passport to prove the room was hers—and a change of clothing into a book tote she'd purchased in Albuquerque. She then slipped out the back window, trusting Rick to lock up both of their rooms and pick up the deck of cards before meeting her at the edge of town.

Their destination was an even smaller town nearby called Nelson that had a bed-and-breakfast overlooking a small natural pond. It had looked so charming when she drove through the previous day that she'd nearly checked in, but Ellen wouldn't have had a way to get home. It might be something the girl would remember if she needed to find them in a crisis.

She ran toward him and slipped onto the motorcycle as he slowed to make the corner. That way, nobody would remember the bike stopping if asked. It was a stretch to turn and bend enough to put her items in the saddlebags, but she managed it by tightening her leg muscles around Rick's hips.

He didn't seem to mind. In fact, he grabbed her knee to steady her when he dodged around a dead rabbit and never seemed to get around to removing his hand.

A tall, padded bar that rose from the back of the bike kept her pressed against his back for the trip, and the scent of him naturally flowed into her nose as the wind blew around them. She'd forgotten how well their bodies fit together. How could she forget something so important, even after a century?

He turned his head slightly, while still keeping his eyes on the road, lit only by the broad high beam from the single headlamp. "Do you want to try to talk while we drive, or just enjoy the night?"

"We'll talk when we get there." He nodded and smiled slightly, and then cranked on the accelerator enough that she gasped when her body hit the padding behind her. It wasn't a long trip, and a part of her wished it would have lasted longer. She understood now why he drove a motorcycle
—the scents and sounds on the night wind were incredible. Maybe when this was all over, she'd—

But no. Over would be
over.
Josette
abruptly realized
that she was shaken to the core at the thought of her own death. Yes, people had been making attempts on her life for as long as she could remember. But after all these years, she never really expected them to succeed. Perhaps she had gotten inexcusably cocky, but alpha Sazi were notoriously difficult to kill. "Head and Heart" was the mantra in Wolven, because if the brain could still send signals then the heart would heal, and if the heart was pumping blood, then the brain would. Damn few, even among the Sazi themselves, knew that.

If the lack of foresight was any indication, she wasn't going to survive these events, unless something drastic changed.

Of course she could be wrong. Perhaps she hadn't "starred" in her visions because she was out of the loop and not currently doing anything that would affect the future. She told herself that it was possible, and it was
…
barely. But the truth was, she didn't believe it. And thus, for the first time in a very long time she was well and truly frightened. If there was any chance at all that she would die soon, she wanted to hear her twin sister's voice on the phone. She needed to tell Amber how much she loved her, Charles, and the children.

But what about Rick? Feeling him pressed against her so intimately made her realize that she still had feelings for him. Yet, not all of them were
good
feelings. Did the bad ones matter anymore? Should she
just let go of the hurt and grab whatever little bit of happiness she could while she
still
could? She just didn't know.

Rick seemed confused
at the change in her mood as they knocked on the door of the darkened building. As they suspected, the owner lived on the premises and was happy to take their cash for a single night's stay
—after a little magical persuasion on Rick's part.

There was only one room available on the second floor, and they quietly mounted the stairs to avoid waking the other few guests. A balcony overlooked the pond, and she immediately opened the French doors to stand out in the night and listen to the crickets and frogs and smell the rich, thick scent of decaying vegetation and fish.

Rick didn't approach. As an empath, he probably realized her feelings were in an uproar. Instead, he unloaded the items from the saddlebags, carefully separating her items on one side of the dresser, with his on the other.

"You feel melancholy," he said softly, and she nodded. "Thinking about times gone by?"

"Thinking about what might have been and what might never be." She turned then, leaning on the railing with the wind making the copper earrings tinkle, and stared at Mm. "I'm not seeing myself in the future, Rick. I don't think I survive this."

She swallowed hard and felt tears well in her eyes. She watched him take the emotional tide like a blow to the chest, visibly moving on the bed. "And for some reason, I feel like it's my own fault. Something I did or didn't do. Who did I let die that should have lived, or didn't kill that I should have?"

He stood then and walked over to her. She let him pull her into his arms and for the first time in a very long while, she cried. Mostly it was frustration at the current situation. She knew it, but allowed herself to finally grieve for Giselle, strong proud Giselle, who had turned the burden of putting down
Maman as a
Wolven agent into a lifelong role as a substitute mother for the young twins,
Antoine
and Fiona. In a way, she'd been very much a mother figure, even to her, helping her train her gifts as
Maman
never could. Like Rick, she'd been an empath and a skilled one. Her death had been for a noble cause, helping to bring down Sargon's evil plan, but it was a death nonetheless.

When she finally finished sobbing quietly against his chest, he released her and walked to the nightstand to retrieve a box of tissues. "Better?"

She nodded and accepted the slip of soft paper. After blowing her nose, she asked the obvious question. "So, did you find what you were looking for?"

If the question surprised him, he didn't show it. Their last argument had been a long-standing one in their relationship, and thinking about Giselle and Ma
-
man reminded her. Rick had wanted children, but she didn't. It was bearing children that had driven
Maman
insane, and she never wanted to risk becoming
Sabine.
Her siblings were all born
special,
whether healers or seers or magically powerful. Whether it was as Giselle believed, and
Maman
had what was currently known as postpartum depression, or whether the sheer power literally affected her brain, the truth was that she had been sane until she bore the twins a few years younger than she and
Yvette.
Money and power hungry, yes
— but sane and rational.
Josette
just wasn't willing to risk bringing a child into the world that she would later intentionally kill.

Rick wanted a family, wanted a stable life, and she just couldn't give it to him, even after he pleaded and argued for over a century. So, he left. And try as she might, she couldn't blame him for wanting what he wanted. For wanting what
most
people wanted. "Did you have your houseful of children with someone else?" Tears threatened again, but she held them back through sheer will.

He shook his head, then sat down on the bed and leaned against the carved mahogany headboard. "Nope. At least, not that I'm aware of. There might be a few out there through sheer accident, but none intentionally."

"But
—" Now she was really confused. "It was the
reason
you left. Wasn't it? Or was there more to it that I haven't been aware of for all these years?"

He started to kick off his boots, using the toe of one to pull at the heel of the other, before letting it drop to the floor. His voice remained soft, and she could hear the emotion play through it. But his scent was reflective of her own scent. She couldn't sort who was feeling what, and possibly he couldn't either.

"It was the reason, alright
—or at least it's what I told myself was the reason. And I married again, twice. But they didn't last for more than a decade and suddenly,
I
was the one who didn't want children." He looked up at her with a sad smile. "I think it's that I just didn't want children with
them.
No, I've been living alone, building my house, for close to a century now, ever since I left Wolven."

She felt her eyebrows raise and she stepped back inside the room, silently closing the glassed doors against the worsening wind and continued to keep her voice low. "You've been building a house for a
century?
That must be one hell of a house!"

The shrug was accompanied by a small smile. "Not as much as you'd think. But when you're carving each stone with chisels right out of the mountainside, it takes a little while. I started with just one room and then added on. It's close to two thousand square feet now. And I hand-dug the well for water,
and
ran the electricity when it was discovered and brought west."

Now she sat down at the foot of the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees as rain began to
splatter against the glass. "You always did like to try out new toys. You've probably gone solar by now, or have wind generators."

A chuckle escaped him. "Solar yes, but they make you get permits for the big wind turbines, and I haven't felt like bothering. I do have a wood-fired hot water heater, though. Staying off the grid suits me." His smile lessened and a tiny line of worry creased his brow. "I heard your house is gone. Were you there at the time?"

She nodded and sighed. "Just outside. I don't miss the house so much as I miss the things in it. I lost
everything.
Papa's pocket watch; Maman's pearl earrings; the quilt Grandmere Giselle gave us as a wedding gift
…
even the ring you gave me."

A variety of emotions flashed across his face and roiled in his scent as she admitted that she'd kept it this whole time. But she wasn't trying to accuse, she was just saying she'd miss them. None of the things she'd wept for had any great monetary value, but each had been priceless to her. Losing them hurt like losing a part of herself. "What I'm going to miss the most is the hand-carved toy cradle from Charles."

Rick laughed. "Oh yeah, I remember that. He put that note inside:
“T
he reason it's empty is because I robbed it.' "

It had been given to her as a joke gift after she very pointedly gave Charles permission to court her sister. While Amber was easily seventy when she first met
Charles,
the Chief Justice of the council was
ancient
—even by Sazi standards. Josette's hindsight had allowed her to see just how long ago he was born. There were fur garments and stone tools involved.

Another chuckle moved his chest and he crossed his arms over it. "I've always wondered if he never mentioned me wooing you because he had it in mind to do the same thing. I mean, you were a pretty
…
mature
woman when I met you, and I was just a lad of twenty-five."

Her skeptical look was enough to elicit another shrug. "I seem to remember you being plenty
mature
enough to convince me to sneak you into Maman's house. In fact, if memory serves, you were exceptionally skilled at certain tasks, even as a
lad."

Now his smile turned lecherous, but there was a warmth to his eyes that added weight and made her shift nervously. "Still am." He moved his arm and patted the other pillow, while still keeping his eyes locked on hers. "If the future's in question, how about we make the present something worth remembering?"

Once again, indecision flooded her, locking her into an almost frozen position at the end of the bed. Rather than cajole or convince her, he simply stood up, walked around the bed, and slid his arms under her bent knees. She didn't stop him, didn't do anything as he carried her the two steps to the pillow and laid her back down. It wasn't until he cupped her chin with his fingers and pulled open her jaw as he
pressed his mouth against hers that she realized just how much she wanted this. She'd wanted him to make the first move, just like he'd made the first move to leave.

Her arms slid up around his neck as he deepened the kiss, using his tongue to massage hers as he used to. There were no corsets this time, and their clothing disappeared with alarming speed.

Rick's palms bore calluses now, thick and rough, probably from the years of carving stone. There was only so much that Sazi healing could heal, especially when it was repeated day after day. Calluses weren't injuries, per
se,
just a thickening that prevented damage. But they raised the hairs on her skin as they glided over her naked body, making her squirm. When his hand reached her knee and moved inward, his lips moved to her neck. A light growl escaped her. Her animal remembered long, playful nights under the full moon where teeth and claws struggled for dominance. She had more magic, but he more muscle, so he usually won and would clamp his teeth into her neck while he mounted her.

Those hands still retained the memory of what would make her moan and scream and climax, and he didn't hesitate to use that remembered skill. Already she could feel wetness between her legs. Her body felt swollen and tight. She let go of past hurts, just for tonight, and let him suckle her breasts while his fingers slid deep inside her. Again and again he rubbed
his rough thumb against her swollen nub, until she was forced to hold a pillow over her own face as the combination of sensations took her over the edge. No sense waking up the neighbors if the storm already hadn't.

“T
ime for the main event." His voice was deep and edged with growls. His scent was so deeply musky that she could smell it through the feather pillow. Her body was still squirming from the intense climax when he spread her legs and slid his thick, pulsing cock inside her. Another sharp gasp, which was close to a scream, escaped her before he ripped the pillow out of her grasp and claimed her mouth with his.

Her hands clutched at his hips as he moved in and out of her while his tongue probed her without mercy. She could feel his lust like a living thing; she wanted to drink it in, let it fill her until she could take no more. He let magic play over her body like a thousand fingers
—tickling her toes and nibbling at her ears.

Her nipples were so hard they hurt from the pleasure of his body rubbing against them and she felt another orgasm building inside her. She tried to slow it, to slow him, but he would have none of it.

"Oh, no, little bobcat," he hissed into her ear after releasing her mouth. "I promised you a night to be remembered." He lifted her hips suddenly and began to push and pull harder, using magic to increase his own size inside her until she couldn't even speak. Lowering his head to her chest, he bit at the mounds of her
breasts lightly
…
then harder as he sensed she was close. His skin was glistening now, a combination of sweat and magic that was intoxicating. His scent was enough to remove the last vestiges of civility from her.

As the rain poured down and the wind howled outside, she grabbed at his hair, his back, his neck. He rode her until they were both growling openly and desperate for release. "Oh, God!" she whispered. "God, Rick! Yes, please."

He chuckled deeply and lifted her hips even higher. "And just wait until I flip you over later." The memory of some of their bedroom adventures long ago was too much in her current state and with a cry that was quickly stifled with his mouth and tongue, another climax raised her shoulders from the bed.

Rick's control was lost when her muscles seized his erection hard enough to pull a moan from him. He gave himself over to the sensation and pounded her body with his while frantically kissing her neck, mouth, and cheeks. His climax was just as intense, and his entire face distorted and reddened from the power of it.

He collapsed onto her and they held each other as their heartbeats returned to a semblance of normal. But his whispered words in her ear sped up her heart again, for a different reason.